Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Students: Loans

Lord Sharkey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what help and advice is available to Muslim students who wish to progress to higher education but for whom an interest-bearing student loan would be a violation of their religious principles, and where that help and advice can be accessed.

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park: The Government is aware that some students, whose religious beliefs may prevent the taking out of a loan that bears interest, may feel unable to take advantage of student loans. In April 2014 BIS conducted a consultation on an alternative finance product for undergraduate students. Upon review of consultation responses, the Government supported the introduction of a Takaful Alternative Finance product available to everyone. This work is ongoing and subject to Parliamentary approval, the Government hopes to introduce the system through new legislation.All students can access advice and guidance on the financial support available to them from Student Finance England on the link below:https://www.gov.uk/contact-student-finance-england

Department for Education

Pre-school Education: Special Educational Needs

Lord Browne of Belmont: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are currently taking to improve support to children with disabilities in their early years.

Lord Nash: This Government is committed to ensuring that all families have access to high quality, flexible and affordable childcare. Children with disabilities should have the same opportunities as other children to access high-quality childcare.Local authorities are required by legislation to secure early education places offering 570 hours a year over no fewer than 38 weeks of the year for all three- and four-year olds, including those with disabilities. The Childcare Bill is delivering extended entitlement to free childcare for working parents of three- and four-year-olds. This will provide eligible parents with a total of 30 hours of free childcare per week, over 38 weeks or the equivalent number of hours across more weeks per year.Early Implementers of the extended childcare entitlement will focus on key delivery issues, including access for children with SEND, in order to provide critical learning to inform national rollout.All early years providers are required to have arrangements in place to identify and support children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and to promote equality of opportunity for children in their care. These requirements are set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework 2014. The SEND Code of Practice, introduced as part of the wide-ranging reforms set out in the Children and Families Act, gives guidance on how children between the ages of 0 and 25 with SEN or disabilities are to be supported and providers are statutorily required to have regard for this Code of Practice.The Government has invested £5.3 million to voluntary and community sector organisations this year. A number of these programmes are delivering specific SEND training to the early years workforce. In particular, the National Day Nurseries Association’s current SEND Champions grant has proven very popular amongst the workforce.The Department funds local authorities’ high needs provision in both the early years and schools through the Dedicated Schools Grant; local authorities have reported that they are planning to spend over £90 million from their high needs budgets on children in their early years. The Spending Review provided a generous uplift in the funding early years providers will receive from April 2017 and protection for the majority of high needs funding. We recognise the critical importance of childcare to parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities; we will consider SEN funding for early years as part of wider consultations in 2016 on how we introduce a fairer funding system.This Government is committed to helping parents with disabled children. For example, from early 2017 working parents with children under the age of 17 who have a disability will be able to access support under Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) worth up to £4,000 per child, per year. This is double that offered for children without disabilities for whom support is offered until the age of 12.

Academies: Finance

Lord Storey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the financial advantages of a school converting to academy status.

Lord Nash: Academies and free schools receive per-pupil funding on an equivalent basis to all other maintained schools. A fundamental principle of the programme is that no school should be financially advantaged or disadvantaged in converting to academy status. Academies have greater freedom than maintained schools to determine the use of the money they receive.Academies also currently receive funding through the Education Services Grant in respect of services that local authorities provide for maintained schools and which academies provide for their own pupils. Academies and local authorities receive the education services grant on the same basis, according to a national per-pupil rate.Academies can form or join multi-academy trusts, allowing them to achieve efficiencies through economies of scale and shared procurement. By coming together in a formal joint-governance structure, multi-academy trusts give schools the ability to maximise the potential benefits from collaboration.

Headteacher Boards

Lord Storey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the minutes of headteacher board meetings are sufficiently detailed and transparent for the benefit of parents and other stakeholders.

Lord Nash: A record of each headteacher board meeting is published on a monthly basis, with a two month delay prior to publication.Since October 2015 these records have been made more detailed, reflecting a desire to increase transparency, whilst maintaining the integrity of the board discussions.All published records of headteacher board meetings are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/schools-commissioners-group/about/our-governance

Ministry of Defence

Defence

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what conclusions they have drawn from the document Future Operating Environment 2035 published by the Ministry of Defence on 14 December 2015.

Earl Howe: Whilst formally released outside the Department in December, the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) published the "Future Operating Environment 2035" (FOE35) internally so that it was available throughout the SDSR period. FOE35 was a source of information on the threats and challenges that Defence would be asked to address in the future. Consequently, SDSR decisions were informed by the Future Operating Environment work and, in particular, the need to focus on being more agile and innovative. The Ministry of Defence continues to consider how the future operating environment will shape the business of Defence. DCDC will take this work forward as it develops the Defence Joint Operating Concept and the Joint and environmental future operating concepts in 2016.

Cyprus: Politics and Government

Lord Kilclooney: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to abandoning one or both of the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus to facilitate a political settlement on the island.

Lord Kilclooney: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to releasing parts of one or both of the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus to facilitate a political settlement on the island.

Earl Howe: The UK will continue to support the efforts of President Anastasiades and Mr Akinci to reunite Cyprus through a just and lasting settlement. The UK has made a generous offer that, as part of a comprehensive settlement, we will cede a significant proportion of the land mass of the Sovereign Base Areas. However, the Sovereign Base Areas continue to have a significant operational value for defence that is expected to endure for the long term.

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Gambling

Lord Chadlington: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in tackling problem gambling.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: This Government wants to ensure that people are protected from being harmed or exploited by gambling. We welcome the ongoing work of the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB), the Gambling Commission and the Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) to identify the causes of problem gambling and to implement effective deterrents and treatments.

Gaming: Internet

Lord Chadlington: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to introduce regulation for the social gaming industry.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: Social gaming is already covered by existing consumer protection legislation and other regulatory bodies. The Gambling Commission published the attached report on social gaming in January 2015. The Commission concluded that there was no compelling reason to impose additional regulation on the social gaming sector given that it is already subject to extensive consumer protection legislation.The Government will continue to keep this issue under review to ensure that appropriate protections remain in place.



Gambling Commission Social Gaming January 2015 
(PDF Document, 126.51 KB)

Gaming Machines

Lord Chadlington: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to publish an updated policy on fixed odds betting terminals.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: On 21 January the Government published its evaluation of the £50 regulations introduced in April 2015, which is attached.The evaluation indicates that a large proportion of players of FOBTs may now be making a more conscious choice to control their playing behaviour and their stake level. We will now consider the findings of the evaluation before deciding if there is a need for further action.



Evaluation of gaming machines April 2015 
(PDF Document, 1.07 MB)

Public Records

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 13 January (HL4703 and HL4704), what were the other administrative reasons for retaining documents to which she refers.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: The administrative grounds for retaining public records referred to in my answer to HL4703 are: records or series of records which have not been selected for transfer to The National Archives or a place of deposit, but which the department has retained after they are defined as historical records because they are required for its own administrative purposes; records or series of records that have been selected for transfer to The National Archives or place of deposit but are still required for administrative purposes; records or series of records which are awaiting appraisal or preparation for transfer.

Public Records

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 13 January (HL4703 and HL4704), whether the decisions not to transfer records to the National Archive were in each case in accordance with the advice given by the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives, and in each case what that advice was.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: Yes, all decisions were made in accordance with the advice by the Advisory Council.

Department for Energy and Climate Change

Nuclear Power

Lord Judd: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the changes in leadership in the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency, whether they remain confident that the regulation of the siting, design and construction of the Geological Disposal Facility, and of other nuclear plant construction and commissioning, is and will continue to be sufficiently staffed and supported with the necessary level of expertise and resources to fulfil their supervisory responsibilities.

Lord Judd: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the expertise and staff resources of the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency are sufficient to monitor effectively the investment and inputs in the nuclear industry by China, Japan, France and other foreign investors.

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth: The Department meets regularly with the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency to review their current and planned resources to deliver their programme of work. Based on these agreed project and workforce plans, I am confident both regulators will continue to have the resources they need across all disciplines to carry out their current and planned future programme.

Department of Health

Commissioning Support Units

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the review of the NHS Commissioning Board’s policy on the autonomy of Commissioning Support Units will impact those units' options for becoming staff enterprises or staff mutuals.

Lord Prior of Brampton: NHS England’s Commissioning Committee will shortly be asked to review its current policy on Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) autonomy.

Commissioning Support Units

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much has been spent by Commissioning Support Units (CSUs) on external management consultancies since they were established; and how much of that was specifically related to contracts CSUs had with the NHS Commissioning Board.

Lord Prior of Brampton: Commissioning Support Units (CSUs) were formally established in April 2013. As at December 2015, CSUs paid out £81 million on consultancy support. Total spend has been reducing year on year as CSUs develop their own internal capacity, with 2015/16 to date spend at £8.4 million.It is not possible to accurately apportion this to specific contracts with NHS England.

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 17 November 2015 (HL3303), whether Monitor has decided on (1) the terms of reference of the independent review into the actions of the South East Coast Ambulance Trust in delaying responses to patients with life-threatening conditions who contacted the 111 service, and (2) whether that review will be made public.

Lord Prior of Brampton: We are advised by Monitor that it is currently agreeing the terms of reference of the review with South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust. The review will look at the impact of the 111 project on patients, covering both benefit and harm.We are also informed by Monitor that the exact format of the review and what information will be made public are still to be determined. Monitor has made clear that the review should identify lessons and best practice which can be shared across the ambulance sector.We are advised that it is expected that the findings of the review will be available before the summer.

NHS England

Lord Scriven: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to review the powers of the Chief Executive of NHS England in terms of making public policy statements.

Lord Prior of Brampton: NHS England is an independent body established by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Its Chief Executive, Simon Stevens, can make public policy statements. There are no plans to review this.